The Best Way To protect Your Computer in 2011
Latest Antivirus Software
Go online to any antivirus software site or walk into a local computer store and you will see shelves loaded down with a bewildering selection of software. There will be spam filters for email, firewalls, antivirus scanners for the home computer, antivirus software packages for the home office, antivirus software for the Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and other platforms. Confusing isn’t it?
Antivirus software changes so quickly. New types of software come out and quickly become outdated within a few months. It’s bewildering to say the least! How can you choose? What should you use? Free software? Commercial software? Customized software? Individual software programs or a software suite? Information overload… Well the answers are below!
The Best Antivirus Software Protection For Your Computer
A Home or Small Office PC running either Windows or Mac OSX needs the following software programs to protect it from viruses or malware. First, is a two-way firewall to watch for and prevent malware from entering your computer or, if already present, reporting home on a successful infiltration. Next, a good scanner to hunt down and kill those viruses and malware that are already on your system. Supporting the scanner, should be an updating service to find and download the latest information on viruses, how to eliminate them and list sites where they are coming from so you can avoid them in the future. And lastly, email, SMS, chat and IM software to scan and filter out spam, suspicious emails, dangerous attachments and malicious code.
By now you’re thinking, “How much is this all going to cost me?” “How will it affect my system?” and “Will everything play nice together?” Ok, this is where looking at an antivirus suite such as those made by McAfee is a good idea.
Why McAfee Is The Best Choice
As a reputable maker of Antivirus Protection Software, McAfee makes a number of good, reasonably priced software packages for Windows and Mac PC’s that are very effective at protecting your computer against viruses and malware. Antivirus Plus and its more capable upgrade, Internet Security for Windows are designed to provide you with essential protection and keep you worry free and out of trouble while you are surfing the net.
Antivirus Plus offers the basic functions of a two-way firewall, virus scanner, the McAfee Site Advisor service to keep you abreast of new threats online and off and a clean, easily understandable interface that lets you control the level of protection you need.
Internet Security for Windows offers all the basic features of Antivirus Plus and goes further by including email, SMS, chat and IM spam and content filters to keep you safe while surfing your favourite SNS site. The software also includes safe online backup support to protect files or documents you want to store online safe and secure.
And, for that growing segment of the market that are switching to Macs, McAfee Total Protection for Mac, like its Windows counterpart provides similar protection for Mac OSX computers whether they are on or off the net. By doing so, McAfee is making a safe platform even safer in a world where hackers are turning their attentions towards the potentially profitable and easy targets Macs make.
even with having McAfee installed in my computer it kept getting infected.I now use Norton 360 ans I have not been infected at all.
Security is an essential concern in our lives and when it comes to computers, there is no exception. That’s why there are passwords to protect your data from unauthorized access. Also, there is anti-virus to prevent viruses, Trojans and the lot from attacking your computer.
Here also a great article on computer intrusion for everybody’s reference.
http://www.techyv.com/article/computer-intruders
Running your browser in a sandbox is currently the best way to prevent your system from becoming infected.
Sandboxing creates a small virtual environment where all system changes spawned from the browsing session are never really written to the host system.
If an apparent infection arises while browsing in a sandboxed session, all one needs to do is to kill the browser session, and empty the sandbox.
Two applications that I know of and use are Sandboxie, and Avast antivirus. I’m sure there are others. I also believe that there will come a time when the malware creators figure out a way around sandboxed applications, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Personally I would recommend internet security suites from either Kaspersky or Norton – latest independent reviews I have seen give McAfee lower ratings.
However, viruses are now so common (and sophisticated) that only better education will really help keep users safe e.g. keep Windows and web software like Adobe Flash/Reader up to date, don’t visit dodgy sites, use safe search software like Web of Trust etc.
I never use 3rd party tools to configure security settings as the native tools in Windows offer all you need. However now I have said that I must say that for AV I use Avast antivirus as there are no real native tools in windows that are worth talking about!
Avast antivirus rules! I used to use AVG and was a solid performer but Avast looks to be a better option today.